Apple's web traffic rivals New York Times, bests eBay, Walmart

A new analysis has ranked Apple as the No. 13 most-visited website in the U.S., besting retailers eBay and Walmart and falling just behind traffic to The New York Times.

comScore released the results of its November 2011 Media Metrix study on Thursday, noting a considerable jump in traffic to toy and consumer electronic sites during the holiday shopping season, as noted byAd Age. According to the analysis, Apple's web properties drew in 79.2 million unique visitors during the month of November, slightly less than 12th-place New York Times Digital's 79.6 million.

Apple, Amazon and eBay were the only retailers to crack the top 15. Walmart placed 18th with 58.5 million visitors.

Google took the top spot with 186.7 million uniques, while Microsoft came in second with 175.5 million. Yahoo! placed third with 174.5 million, and Facebook.com came in fourth at 166 million.

The iTunes Store made up a significant 30 percent of Apple's unique visitors during the month of November, according to the report. comScore revealed that digital content, including books, music and TV shows, represents the fastest-growing e-commerce category for this holiday season. Digital content sales are up 30 percent year over year, compared to general e-commerce growth of 15 percent.

Given that Apple came in 14th place with 69.9 million unique visitors in the November 2010 Media Metrix study, the company saw more than 13 percent growth in traffic to its web properties from a year ago.

The iPhone maker has seen growth for its international websites as well. Between August and October, Apple's U.K. online store was second only to Amazon.co.uk in terms of traffic, according to one recent analysis.